Rent to Own Homes in Santa Monica

If you make Santa Monica your home, you may not want to head out of town too often. The Santa Monica Daily Press will ensure that you're always up to date on the news while the Third Street Promenade satisfies your need for shopping, dining and entertainment. You can slip out to the Santa Monica Pier and Aquarium to spend time with family or friends, and the views at Palisades Park will keep you mesmerized. If you want views of a different nature, you can always plan a visit to Muscle Beach. With all of these attractions plus many more, it's easy to see how Santa Barbara may satisfy your active lifestyle.

Buying a Home in Santa Monica

Santa Monica is an interesting real estate market because you can find homes selling for $500,000 alongside those selling for $5 million. While the overall median listing price for the city is often around $1.5 million, it goes up to more than $4 million in some neighborhoods. With those prices, it's not surprising that fewer than 30 percent of residents own their own homes. If you're moving to the area with children, look for homes in the Lincoln Middle or Santa Monica High district. Most of the city's elementary schools receive high ratings.

Popular Neighborhoods in Santa Monica

If you want to live within walking distance of downtown Santa Monica, consider a home on or just north of Montana Avenue. This is an affluent neighborhood with wide, tree-lined streets, but it's also home to a variety of boutiques and restaurants that are an easy walk from many homes. If you prefer an eclectic neighborhood with a blend of Craftsman and Victorian homes, head further south to Wilshire Boulevard. You'll find a variety of small shops and restaurants in this area, and you may enjoy the family-friendly vibe. If you prefer to live close to the water, you may feel right at home in Ocean Park.

Buying vs. Rent to Own Homes

Owning a home in Santa Monica is a big dream due to the high real estate prices, but it's not impossible when you consider rent-to-own homes. This is a special contract that allows you to rent your way to homeownership. During the initial phase, you rent the property from the current owner. A portion of your monthly rent may go into an escrow account so that you can use it toward the purchase of the home at a later point. The details will vary from one property to another, but you will typically have a date by which you must buy the home or move out.

While this isn't a direct road to owning a home, it is an option that can put you on that path. You can use the rental period to save up a more substantial down payment so that you don't have to finance the full cost of a Santa Barbara home. Improving your credit score during the rental phase can lower your interest rate as well. This will make owning a home in this aggressive market more affordable.

Cost of Living in Santa Monica

Due to extremely high real estate prices, the overall cost of living in Santa Monica often rises more than 300 percent above the national average. Most residents pay a bit more than average for utilities and transportation, but most goods and services are available for average prices. The high real estate costs are the reason that most residents rent homes rather than purchasing their own property. If you want to buy a home, you may need to watch your budget by shopping at lower-priced retail stores rather than the expensive boutiques and malls found throughout the city.

Summary

Though the cost of living in Santa Monica is well beyond double the national average, there are many reasons to call this southern California city your home. For starters, you'll have easy access to one of the most popular beaches in the state. You can also find residential areas within walking distance of downtown, which is home to the Santa Monica Promenade as well as many boutiques and restaurants. You may also feel right at home in some neighborhoods that feature a laid-back surfer attitude. This is one city where you can live comfortably with a bike rather than a personal vehicle, and that's always one way to make up for the high cost of housing.

Rent to Own Realtors

An agent serves as a protection for both the buyer and the seller. They can save the buyer and seller a lot of time and money, which could offset the realtor’s commission.

However, not many realtors are interested in helping with lease-options. They make a minimal profit off of the lease portion of the deal, and the profit from the purchase is several years down the line and isn’t guaranteed.

Instead, protect yourself by communicating with lawyers, title agents and mortgage lenders to ensure that your rent to own deal works smoothly.

About Our Listings

Whether you’re interested in purchasing a condo or a townhouse, or if you’ve been touring apartments and houses, rent to own can be a good option for buyers – often with no credit check.

Just because the seller isn’t checking your credit score doesn’t mean you shouldn’t worry about it. You’ll need to have a credit score high enough to qualify for financing if you want to succeed in a rent to buy deal.

In rent to own by owner programs, sellers want to make a profit off of their properties. They will earn rent money from you whether you successfully buy the house or not. So, they don’t really worry about whether you have the credit score to buy it at the end of the lease.

Lease to purchase deals from a company are often less successful than from an owner because companies tend to snatch up cheap foreclosed homes and lease-option them on an “as is” basis.

Owners who are eager to sell their property may ask you to sign a lease-purchase agreement, which is very different from a lease-option because instead of having the option to buy the property before the end of the lease, you legally have to buy it. That can be difficult if you start the deal with bad credit and cannot bring it up high enough to qualify for a mortgage.

Looking for rent to own listings near me? Start your search on the Rent to Own Labs database.